News Excerpt:
The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) in Bengaluru has successfully completed the first test of a solar-powered pseudo satellite.
About high-altitude pseudo satellite vehicle (HAPS):
- HAPS is a new-age unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can significantly increase India’s surveillance and monitoring capabilities in border areas.
- HAPS can fly at altitudes of 18-20 km from the ground, almost double the heights attained by commercial airplanes.
- It can generate solar power, and remain in the air for months, even years, offering it the advantages of a satellite.
- It does not require a rocket to get into space.
- The cost of operating HAPS is several times lower than that of a satellite that is usually placed at least 200 km from the Earth.
Uses of HAPS:
- High-altitude flying instruments arose from the desire to have continuous surveillance of border areas to detect changes or movements.
- Battery-powered UAVs can remain in the air for a limited period of time and can scan relatively smaller areas.
- Satellites placed in low-earth orbits and meant to observe the Earth usually move in their orbits and are not watching constantly.
- HAPS in disaster situations,
- It can even be used to provide mobile communications networks in remote areas, if the normal networks get damaged due to any calamity.
Latest updates on HAPS development
- HAPS is still a developing technology, and this successful test flight puts India among a very small group of countries currently experimenting with this technology.
- The test flight carried out in the Challakere testing range in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka, saw the scaled-down 23-kg prototype with a wing span of about 12 meters, remain in the air for about eight and a half hours, achieving an altitude of about 3 km from the ground.
